'The Walking Dead' Season 3 Finale Recap: Pretty Little Pliers

“The Walking Dead’s” season 3 finale Sunday night left fans feeling less than satisfied. “A major character will be killed,” previews for the finale teased, but they didn’t add that it would be done in one of the most lame and predictable ways.

The episode opens up with a grueling shot of the Governor’s single eyeball. He’s punching Milton in the face as punishment for setting fire to the zombies in the pit a few episodes back.

“We lost eight men because of you,” he tells him, referring to the people Merle killed at the grain warehouse conference room, but he doesn’t explain why no one picked up any walkers along the way. Most faithful viewers know there are always conveniently placed zombies.

The Governor doesn’t kill Milton right then and there, of course. He has something more gruesome in store for him. The Governor takes the newly beaten Milton to the torture workshop where his ex-girlfriend Andrea is tied up to a dentist's chair. He tells Milton, “See, she’s still alive. I’m going to need her for something,”

In retrospect he really didn’t need her for anything. The viewers of “TWD” just needed something exciting to see on the finale of season 3. The Governor tells Andrea he’s going to attack the prison and kill all of her friends. “I’m going to really do it this time,” he mutters under his breath. He adds that he’s persuaded the rest of the group to storm the prison.

Now it’s time for the Governor’s cruel game. He makes Milton bring him a tray of tools, which Milton intentionally drops, leaving a pair of pliers on the floor. Then the Governor hands him a tool and tells him to kill Andrea. He refuses, and the Governor stabs Milton.

“In this life now you kill or you die,” he tells Milton as he locks him the room with Andrea, “Or you die and you kill.” Andrea stares at her imminent fate. A dying Milton will soon turn into a zombie and eat her alive; not before a heart-to-heart, but that’s later in the episode.

Carl is mad at Rick back at the prison, nothing new of course. I was trying to figure out why he was upset at his father, before realizing it wasn’t revealed why they were having father-son troubles again. Viewers soon find out he can’t participate in the war against the Governor and that’s why he’s pouting.

Back at Woodbury, Tyrese told the Governor that he no longer wanted to join the fight against the prison. So he vows to stay behind and watch the children, to which the Governor hisses, “thank you.”

The Woodbury troops pick up their weapons, which include a grenade launcher and machine guns, to storm the prison. To the Governor’s disappointment, there is no one in cellblock C to fight once he and his faux army arrive at the prison. The only thing there is a Bible with a highlighted passage from John 5:29 --

"And shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection and the life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."

Or, the good guys (Rick’s crew) will prevail and the bad guys (the Governor’s troops) will perish. He refusing to give up, forcing his way through the convoluted tunnels in the prison, only to be faced with a zombie trap set by Rick’s crew. They flee, running outside to escape the zombies, and cue Glen and Maggie wearing Morgan’s body armor. They fire their machine guns at the Governor’s crew, who seem to have forgotten they have their own machine guns and grenade launchers.

After their opponents anticlimatic retreat, Rick’s crew rejoices. But the mood is dimmed when Carl kills a young man who is trying to surrender. Tattletale Hershel tells Rick of Carl’s most recent murder, which seems to infuriate Rick. Maybe he should give the kid a break considering he killed his own mother and all. He then goes on to say the most insightful statement of the season to his father in defense of killing the surrendering guy:

"I couldn't take the chance. I didn't kill the walker that killed Dale, and look what happened. You didn't kill Andrew, and he came back and killed Mom. You were in a room with the Governor, and you let him go, and then he killed Merle. I did what I had to do. Now go. So he doesn't kill any more of us."

In the next scene the Governor is upset over his loss and takes it out on his crew. He guns down everyone except for Martinez and one other person. They take a scenic route home and are not shown for the rest of the episode.

Meanwhile, in the torture room Milton and Andrea are having a heart-to-heart. He asks her why she stayed at Woodbury and asks why she didn’t kill the Governor when she had the chance. She says she didn’t want anyone else to die. Milton interrupts her speech to remind her he’s dying in a hurry and needs her to get the pliers to kill him before he turns into a zombie and kills her. In a predictable turn of events, Andrea drops the pliers just as Milton dies and turns into a zombie, leaving a helpless Andrea shackled to the dentist chair in the torture room. She’s heard screaming off-camera.

Rick’s crew decides to go back to Woodbury to try and kill the Governor, but since he is taking the scenic route home he hasn’t gotten back there yet. The “prisoners” find Andrea, half-alive with a chunk of flesh missing from her neck. She killed zombie Milton, but her feisty character’s run on the show is over. She asks Rick if she can shoot herself, jokingly telling Rick, “I know how to use the safety,” reminiscing of when she shot one of their own people. Michonne stays behind and shoots her behind a closed door.

Viewers didn’t get to see anything that happened in the torture room except for when Milton was shot. In summary, Andrea is dead, Rick brings back some women and children to the prison in the end and no one knows what’s going on with the Governor. The end.

Wouldn’t it have been awesome if lingerie zombie Lori somehow came back? Just a final thought.